Refuse piles up at the entrance to the tenements at 53 to 59 MacDougal Street, February 1912.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, New York City's trash problem reached epic proportions. In 1894, newly elected mayor William Strong knew he had to do something, and offered the job of sanitation commissioner to Teddy Roosevelt, who refused, essentially saying that it was an impossible job.Lewis Wickes Hine/Library of Congress

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Things got even worse during the garbage strike of November 8-11, 1908. Pictured: Crowds and police gather in the street during the strike.Bain News Service/Library of Congress

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The "White Wings" clean the streets, under police protection, during the garbage strike of November 8-11, 1908.

The "White Wings" took to the streets under the orders of pioneering sanitary engineer George Waring, whose efforts ameliorated but didn't totally solve the city's trash problem.Library of Congress

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Children play near a dead horse left to rot in the street, circa 1905.

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Children gather in Mullen's Alley in the Cherry Hill area of lower Manhattan, 1888.Jacob Riis/Wikimedia Commons

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A woman carries a bundle of clothing to be sewn at home near Astor Place, February 1912.

Poor immigrant workers often toiled for long hours and took their work home with them.Lewis Wickes Hine/Library of Congress

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A street peddler who'd slept in a basement at 11 Ludlow Street in the Lower East Side, 1899.Jacob Riis/Wikimedia Commons

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Two women and a man gather in front of outhouses at an unspecified location, circa 1902-1914.

Most turn-of-the-century New York City tenements didn't have indoor plumbing.New York Tenement House Department/New York Public Library

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A food vendor sells his wares in the streets of the Lower East Side on February 24, 1917.Bain News Service/Library of Congress

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Dead bodies lie in an alley off Monroe Street following a nearby fire, December 1913.Library of Congress

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Men wait on the bread line in the Bowery on February 7, 1910.Library of Congress

The Municipal Lodging House for the homeless sits across the street from an abandoned lot on 25th Street, circa 1909-1920.

The house opened in February 1909 to help treat a citywide homelessness problem that saw as many as 600 new applicants looking for shelter each day.

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Men stand at a corner on Chinatown's Pell Street, circa 1900.Byron/Library of Congress

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Crowds at Pitt and Rivington Streets in the Lower East Side, 1915.Underwood & Underwood/Library of Congress

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Street festival in Little Italy, 1908.Library of Congress

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Clothes line the railings of the tenements at 260 to 268 Elizabeth Street, March 1912.Lewis Wickes Hine/Library of Congress

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Street dweller, circa 1890.Jacob Riis/Wikimedia Commons

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Children wearing signs in English and Yiddish protest child labor conditions on May 1, 1909.

At the turn of the century, just about one-fifth of America's workforce was under the age of 16 -- and New York was no exception.Library of Congress

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Boys in Hell's Kitchen demonstrate how they rob people who have passed out. Jacob Riis/Wikimedia Commons

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Children behind the tenements at 134 1/2 Thompson Street, February 1912.Lewis Wickes Hine/Library of Congress

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Two newspaper boys asleep in the press room of The Sun, 1892.

Working for the newspapers was one dependable way for young boys to earn some extra money for their families. However, their labor was often exploited and undervalued, leading to the infamous newsboys strike of 1899.Jacob Riis/Wikimedia Commons

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Chinatown storefront, circa 1903.Library of Congress

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Man killed by a bomb at an anarchist rally in Union Square on March 28, 1908.

In the face of a depressed economic climate and exploitative labor conditions, among other far-reaching factors, anarchism saw a wave of popularity in the U.S. in the late 1800s and early 1900s, with New York being no exception. Library of Congress

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107th Street just east of 3rd Avenue, February 1912.Lewis Wickes Hine/Library of Congress

The Bowery, a street and eponymous neighborhood running through what is now Manhattan's East Village, was a notorious hotbed of crime, poverty, and taboo behaviors (prostitution and homosexuality among them) during the wave of immigration to New York City in the late 1800s and early 1900s.Lewis Wickes Hine/Library of Congress

On December 17, 1900, the U.S. government opened an immigration processing station on New York's Ellis Island. By that point, the city had already been processing hundreds of thousands of immigrants per year for more than a decade. After that point, those numbers truly exploded.

Between 1900 and 1914, an average of well over half a million immigrants -- largely from central, eastern, and southern Europe -- came through New York each year (that's more than 5,000 per day). Today, nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population can trace at least one of their ancestors back to the immigrants who came through that one station during that short span.

While millions of those immigrants promptly boarded trains for points all across the U.S., hundreds of thousands stayed put in New York City. In 1900, New York already had nearly 1.3 million foreign-born residents. By 1920, that number had reached 2 million, which was more than one-third of the city's total population.

And an enormous number of those immigrants took up residence in just a few of the city's neighborhoods. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, one particular cluster of neighborhoods in lower Manhattan including Chinatown, Little Italy, and the Lower East Side swelled beyond capacity as immigrants came pouring in.

Because these neighborhoods quickly grew so far beyond their limits, the immigrant experience itself pushed its way out of the overcrowded tenements and onto the streets. Indeed, it was out in the streets where so many of New York's turn-of-the-century immigrants lived, worked, and scraped by.

Likewise, it was in the streets that the cultures and identities of these immigrant groups adapted to their new home. From anguished poverty to vibrant culture, the street scenes above capture the full breadth of the immigrant experience in turn-of-the-century New York.